Against Ranked Teams- Week 5

[SWC75]

This year I will be again charting how teams have done “against ranked teams”, which is something that always comes up at the end of the year when the arguments over who should be in the 4 team national championship playoff takes place. As usual, this is not meant to end those arguments, just to give those making them something to look at in forming their opinions.

I’m going to do it a bit differently this year. The old procedure was that I would first grant teams playing ranked teams a certain number of points based on who they are playing. If you played the #1 team, (I use the AP- writer’s poll for continuity), you get 25 points. If you are playing the #2 team, you get 24 points, etc. down to getting 1 point for playing the #25 team. I call these “schedule points”. Here’s a chart to make it simple:
1-25, 2-24, 3-23, 4-22, 5-21, 6-20, 7-19, 8-18, 9-17, 10-16, 11-15, 12-14, 13-13, 14-12, 15-11, 16-10, 17-9, 18-8, 19-7, 20-6, 21-5, 22-4, 23-3, 24-2, 25-1.
(Of course you can always just subtract the ranking from 26. That will work every time.)

Then I look at the point differential in the actual game. If you defeated the ranked team, you add the number of points you won by to the schedule points. If you lost to that team, you subtract the margin you lost by from the schedule points. (I call these ‘game’ points.) The difference between this year and last year if that I didn’t count any deficit: if you got to zero, you got zero. This year I’m going to try to record negative points, too, so a team can get full ‘credit’ for a really bad performance.

WEEK 5

Auburn beat #24 Mississippi State 49-10 = +41 points
Clemson beat #12 Virginia Tech 31-17 = +28 points
Washington State beat #5 Southern California 30-27 = +24 points
Virginia Tech lost to #2 Clemson 17-31 = +10 points
Northwestern lost to #10 Wisconsin 24-33 = +8 points
Southern California lost to #16 Washington State 27-30 = +7 points
Texas Tech lost to #15 Oklahoma State 34-41 = +4 points
Troy beat #25 Louisiana State 24-21 = +4 points
Northern Illinois lost to #19 San Diego State 28-34 = +1 point
Indiana lost to #4 Penn State 14-45 = -9 points
Vanderbilt lost to #21 Florida 24-38 = -9 points
Duke lost to #14 U of Miami 6-31 = -13 points
Oregon State lost to #5 Washington 7-42 = -14 points
East Carolina lost to #18 South Florida 31-61 = -22 points
Tennessee lost to #7 Georgia 0-41 = -22 points
Mississsippi State lost to #13 Auburn 10-49 = -26 points
Miami U. lost to #22 Notre Dame 17-52 = -31 points
Murray State lost to #17 Louisville 10-55 = -36 points
Mississippi lost to #1 Alabama 3-66 = -38 points
Rutgers lost to #11 Ohio State 0-56 = -41 points

Comments: This seems to be a down year for the SEC. Obviously Alabama is strong. Georgia looks good. So does Auburn but Clemson has already beaten them. Kentucky and Texas A&M are 4-1 but that won’t last. South Carolina and Arkansas are mediocre. LSU, Tennessee, Vanderbilt, Missouri MIssissippi and Mississippi State have looked bad. The top teams will roll up impressive but perhaps deceiving records and it will be harder than usual for them to roll up the points in this study. I think we are in the toughest conference in America right now.

TOP 25

Clemson +87 points
Auburn +49 points
Alabama +40 points
Georgia +40 points
Oklahoma +39 points

Southern California +37 points
Texas Christian +33 points
Michigan +25 points
Washington State +24 points
Virginia Tech +21 points

Iowa +20 points
North Carolina State +20 points
Texas +19 points
Baylor +15 points
Maryland +13 points

California +11 points
Notre Dame +10 points
San Diego State +10 points
Florida State +8 points
Northwestern +8 points

Colorado State +7 points
Ohio State +6 points
Mississippi State +5 points
Memphis +4 points
Texas Tech +4 points

Troy +4 points
Western Michigan +4 points

Syracuse is -8 points and Kent State is last with -64 points